Political Networks in a Failing State The Roots and Future

44 Reno, Sierra Leone ipg 2/2003

ierra Leone’s conflict began in March 1991 and formally concluded atthe 18th of January 2002 with a Joint Declaration of End of War. Rep-

resentatives of nearly 70,000 combatants, from the RevolutionaryUnited Front (ruf), the Sierra Leone Army, and the quasi-official CivilDefense Force (cdf), pledged to disarm and integrate into civilian life.As of early 2003, 16,000 soldiers of the United Nations Mission in SierraLeone (unamsil) oversee this transition and coordinate international aidto rebuild the country’s administrative institutions, while British agenciestake the lead in reforming the country’s police and army. The end of SierraLeone’s conflict also marks the success of international efforts to draw at-tention to the role of »blood diamonds«, and other natural resources insustaining warring groups and shaping their predatory tactics and goals.This trade in diamonds, generating an estimated annual income of 150 to250 million dollars in a country that recorded a gdp of only 636 milliondollars in 2000, highlighted links between Sierra Leone’s combatants andCharles Taylor, president of neighboring Liberia, and Lebanese, Russianand Israeli criminal groups.1

Along with neighboring Liberia, Sierra Leone’s war was among thefirst of several destructive internal conflicts in Africa in which the exploi-tation of natural resources has played a prominent part. Sierra Leone’sgovernment collected about 250 million dollars in internal revenues an-nually during the mid 1970s, plummeting to ten million dollars in 2000.Like Liberia, the country’s gdp by 2000 stood at about a third of its 1980

1. Ian Smillie, Lansana Gberie, Ralph Hazleton, The Heart of the Matter: Diamonds &Human Security, (Ottawa: Partnership Africa Canada, 2000); United Nations, Re-port of the Panel of Experts Appointed Pursuant to un Security Council Resolution1306 (2000), Paragraph 19 in Relation to Sierra Leone, (New York, un S/2000/1195,2000). gdp figures from Economist Intelligence Unit, Sierra Leone, Sept. 2001, 32.

S

Political Networks in a Failing StateThe Roots and Future of Violent Conflict in Sierra Leone

WILLIAM RENO

ipg 2/2003 Reno, Sierra Leone 45

value.2 During a peak in fighting in 1999, about 600,000 of SierraLeone’s five million people sought refuge in neighboring countries.About two-thirds who remained were displaced inside their own coun-try.3 Violence and predation continued despite internationally mediatedpeace agreements in 1996, 1997, 1999, and 2000. This long-running warand precarious peace mirrors conflicts in countries such as Congo,Guinea-Bissau, neighboring Liberia, and since September 2002, Côted’Ivoire. These developments are explained in some scholarly work as atriumph of greed over grievance; that abundant natural resources causeconflict because they create opportunities for predatory individuals tomaximize their economic gains and crowd out the rest.4

Under What Conditions Does Greed Create Or Not Create War?

This analysis has a lot of utility when applied to Sierra Leone. The violentscramble to control natural resources played a key role in creating refu-gees, breaking down state administration, and in reinforcing the preda-tory character of armed groups. I add, however, that predation linked tonatural resources in fact emerges out of particular political strategies thatpredate Sierra Leone’s war that need to be understood to promote dura-ble peace. Violent political networks, some armed and dating back to the1950s provide a context in which natural resources played an especiallyprominent role in conflict. The politics of this era, and more so after theestablishment of a single party state in 1978, emphasized a network of per-sonal rule. After independence in 1961, this developed behind the façade

2. Figures for the 1970s, adjusted to 2000 prices, are calculated from InternationalMonetary Fund, Balance of Payments Statistics Yearbook, (Washington, dc: imf,1990), 243. 2000 figures are from Government of Sierra Leone, Bulletin of Eco-nomic Trends, (Freetown, 2001), 12. gdp figures from Economist IntelligenceUnit, Sierra Leone, Sept. 2001, 32.

3. International Crisis Group, Sierra Leone: Time for a New Military and PoliticalStrategy, (London: icg, 11 April 2001), 2.

4. Paul Collier, »Economic Causes of Civil Conflict and Their Implications for Pol-icy«, Chester Crocker & F.O. Hampson, eds., Managing Global Chaos (Washing-ton, dc: United States Institute for Peace, 2002); »Doing Well Out of War: AnEconomic Perspective«, Greed & Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars, (Boul-der: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000), 91–111.


of statehood. It was not founded on conventional concepts of legitimacy,or even on supporting formal bureaucratic institutions. Instead SierraLeone’s presidents ruled through controlling markets, especially in dia-monds, and manipulated other people’s access to economic opportuni-ties in ways that enhanced their power.

A key element of this patronage-based strategy of rule lay in the factthat over time high officials found it in their interests to undermine theformal institutions of the state itself. State office and globally recognizedsovereignty provided a license to exploit resources. But to use these re-sources to finance state institutions would threaten these officials, sincean efficient army or civil ministry could provide a base for more efficientor popular rivals to challenge their economic and political power. Up toa point, it became possible for Sierra Leone’s presidents to preside overthe collapse of their own states years before fighting broke out, usingtheir coercive control of markets to maintain their holds on power andimpose a precarious order. Like the predatory organizations that arose inthe 1990s, their political networks and strategies were deeply rooted in ex-ploiting diamonds. Though more violent, later armed groups mirroredpresidential political strategies and tactics to a large degree, especially asSierra Leone’s eleven year war featured competition for resources ratherthan their concentration in the hands of one organization.

To the economist, this is war motivated by greed. For the young fighter, it is injustice.

Natural resources and close connections to criminal rackets do not au-tomatically generate predation, even if they offer incentives for some in-dividuals to try to provoke war. Dagestan and Ingush Republics borderwar torn Chechnya and share many of Chechnya’s criminal gangs andrackets that help fuel conflict in their less fortunate neighbor, but they re-main more peaceful. Predatory wars develop in places with few resourceslike Somalia – with a prior legacy of patronage-based rule and destructionof state institutions – but ended in the better endowed north that was dis-tant and marginalized from the predatory networks based in the capitalin the 1970s and 1980s.

Likewise, resources alone tells little about why Sudan’s governmentpursues a strenuous nationalist and religious ideological program to thepoint of attracting international sanctions that undermine the efficient


exploitation of oil. Khartoum’s rulers fail to make the most basic pro-grammatic and ideological compromises and equivocations grasped byrulers of oil rich Angola, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and elsewhere to ap-pease foreign business partners. Likewise, Afghanistan’s Taliban regimecut opium production by 96 percent between 2000 and 2001, foregoingan estimated income of 100 million dollar.5 In contrast, Liberia’s presi-dent Taylor, commander of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia(npfl) in that country’s 1989–96 war, highlights the power of greed. uninvestigators estimate that his private transactions in 2000 were five timeslarger than Liberia’s official budget for that year.6

Universal assumptions concerning natural resources and motivationsin conflict fail to explain why conflicts evolve differently unless they labelcontrary action as false consciousness or evidence that leaders dupe fol-lowers. They explain a lot about Sierra Leone’s and several other Africanconflicts, however. But this is due more to the nature of rule and statecollapse prior to conflicts rather than to an innate character of naturalresources. In these cases, predatory personalist rule and state collapsedestroyed other economic opportunities that depended upon more stablestate institutions.

These developments generate grievances, especially over injustice andinsecurity that violent personalist rulers and warfare imposed. Thesegrievances get channeled into predatory organizations, as even dissentingindividuals accept protection or collaborate with predators. Others ea-gerly join in. Regardless of actors’ motive, analysis means that denying re-sources to armed groups is a necessary but insufficient requirement forensuring that Sierra Leone remains at peace. This task also requires ad-dressing grievances that are at the root of popular experiences of person-alist rule and state collapse. It is this context that generated conflict in thefirst place and which is the subject of the next section. This follows withan evaluation of postwar conflict resolution and reconstruction efforts inlight of this analysis.

5. United Nations Drug Control Monitoring Programme, Afghanistan AnnualOpium Poppy Survey 2001, (Islamabad: undcp, Sept. 2001), iii, 11.

6. Government of Liberia, The Budget of the Government of Liberia, 2000/2001,(Monrovia: Bureau of the Budget, 2000), 10–11; For estimates of Taylor’s income,United Nations, Report of the Panel of Experts Appointed Pursuant to SecurityCouncil Resolution 1395 (2002), Paragraph 4, in Relation to Liberia, (New York,un S/2002/470, 2002), 23–34.


Presidential Power Politics and the Political Economy of Diamond Mining

Since their discovery in 1930, Sierra Leone’s diamonds have played a ma-jor role both in the prosperity of the 1950s and 1960s and in the devasta-tion and war of recent years. Unlike oil, copper or cobalt, alluvial dia-monds are accessible to large numbers of people equipped with handtools and are easily smuggled. Official state and foreign corporate controlover income from diamonds financed state services and investment inprevious decades. Later this income attracted armed groups too, not somuch due to an innate character of diamonds, but as a consequence ofearlier policies.

Who controlled resources and for what end is reflected in radicalchanges in state capacity. In the late 1950s, officials complained that insti-tutions of higher learning expanded too fast to absorb new funding, butlauded expanded government bus service to rural communities. Theylooked forward to the timely arrival of daily newspapers from the capital,courtesy of more domestic flights.7 By the 1980s, civil servants receivedonly sporadic salary payments. Television broadcasts ended in 1987 whenthe Minister of Information sold the transmitter to a »Kuwaiti investor«.The radio tower fell over in 1989, ending state radio transmissions outsidethe capital. In 1993, only three percent of the (drastically reduced) officialbudget was spent on education, and only four percent for other »sociallyoriented« projects.8 By 1995 the battle against the ruf absorbed 75 percentof official spending.9

The initial recession of state capabilities was rooted in difficulties stateofficials faced in controlling diamond exploitation, a situation that neednot implicate the government in a strategy of greed. Rather it highlightsthe fact that control over resources is central to the capacity of a govern-ment to impose legitimate political order. The discovery of alluvial dia-monds occurred in a colonial legal context that distinguished between re-cently arrived immigrants and »natives« of chiefdoms. Colonial ordi-

7. Governor’s Office, Confidential, No. 13383/517, (Freetown, 12 Feb. 1959).8. John Karimu, Government Budget and Economic and Financial Policies for the

Financial Year 1996, (Freetown, 29 Dec. 1995), 12.9. John Karimu, Government Budget and Economic and Financial Policies for the

Fiscal Year 1995/1996, (Freetown, 29 June 1995), 10.


nances accentuated the precarious elements of the customary socialstanding of settlers, forcing them into a more vulnerable and permanent»stranger« category, which reinforced their need to seek protection froma local strongman. Previously, land use rights theoretically were subjectto review each year by local chiefs and headmen, but strangers often mar-ried into local lineages and reduced their patron’s power over them.10

The discovery of diamonds also marked the start of clandestine min-ing, known officially as illicit diamond mining (idm), centered on Konoand Kenema Districts. idm attracted young men from all parts of SierraLeone and neighboring West African territories. Mostly single, their ar-rival caused consternation among colonial officials who feared the polit-ical and social consequence of the appearance of »rootless, detribalizednatives«. These new arrivals also helped create clandestine trade networksthat crossed borders and later played important roles in supplying armsand military support to ruf fighters in the 1990s. A Mines Departmentobserved: »A large number of Protectorate natives resorted to the illicitmining of diamonds, apparently due to some bad crop years, and al-though many were failures, there were also quite a number who did verywell and a few who made large sums of money and became rich. This at-tracted Africans from French territory and Liberia, some of whom cometo mine and others to buy diamonds to smuggle away from SierraLeone.«11 An estimated 35,000 strangers settled in Kono to mine dia-monds during the 1950s and 1960s, while the colonial government esti-mated that 75,000 people were engaged in mining in the whole countryin 1956, the majority of them illegally.12

This new breed of strangers had to appeal to local chiefs not only togain access to diamonds, but now for protection from Freetown’s offi-cials. With this came huge influxes, amounting to 43 percent of Kono’speople in 1963, and 48 percent by 1970.13 Enterprising chiefs and head-

10. Vernon Dorjahn & Christopher Fyfe, »Landlord and Stranger: Change in TenancyRelations in Sierra Leone«, Journal of African History, 3:3 (1962), 391–97.

11. Department of Mines, Report of the Mines Department for the Year 1955, (Free-town: Government Printer, 1956), 3.

12. The first estimate if from H.L. van der Laan, The Sierra Leone Diamonds, Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1965), 10–11; the latter is from Department of Mines, Report onthe Mines Department, 1956, (Freetown: Government Printer, 1957), 4.

13. David King, »Population Characteristics of Diamond Boom Towns in Kono«, Af-ricana Research Bulletin, (1975), 62.


men found that they could extract informal »license fees« and »fines«from young men in return for protection for their idm activities. Willingchiefs also manipulated widespread local sentiments that diamonds reallybelonged to local people. A foreign mining company reported that »thisfeeling also seems to have been prevalent in the rank and file of both thepolice and [mining company] security force«,14 further underminingstate control over this major source of income. The colonial governmentpreferred that a large foreign firm mine diamonds to ensure regular pay-ments of royalties and taxes. Anglo-American worked a large concessionsince the mid 1930s, and kept an armed private security force to contendwith idm poachers. After 1956, local small-scale mining came under therubric of a government-run licensing system to entice clandestine opera-tors into regulated and taxed channels. The preference for foreign firmsto force out clandestine mining reemerged in the 1980s, a preference thatSierra Leone’s foreign creditors would share, and which yet again is seenas the key to rebuilding central government revenue capacity.

A key element of the patronage-based strategy of rule lay in the fact that over time high officials found it in their interests to undermine the formal institutions of the state itself.

Corporate control in fact made conflict worse between idm miners,chiefs, and national authorities. Coinciding local interests enabled ambi-tious chiefs to use idm strangers to marshal support for their preferredlocal headmen candidates and to intervene in chiefdom succession dis-putes in neighboring areas. The strangers possessed the added advantageof reliance on the chief ’s favor, since the chief could use the illegal natureof their activity to call upon individual Freetown officials to prosecutenoncompliant guests. This arrangement gave chiefs informal social con-trol over young men and diamond resources. It occurred against the in-terests and sanctions of the state, yet was legitimate in the eyes of manylocal people, and was accepted by most strangers so long as chiefs con-trolled access to mining opportunities. It was when outsiders, such as theFreetown government or agents of the foreign firm, interlopers in the

14. Chief Inspector of Mines, Interim Report on the Alluvial Diamond MiningScheme, 18 June 1956.


view of strangers and their local patrons, gained control that conflictworsened in the 1950s.

Government interest in permitting small-scale miners’ access to legallysanctioned mining in 1956 grew from British fears that party politics inadvance of Independence would encourage local and stranger youth de-mands for a share of diamond resources. Many already favored a radicalnationalist party that campaigned against »foreign exploitation« and re-mote officialdom in Freetown.15 The official alluvial mining licensescheme relied upon chief support for applicants to entice chiefs to com-ply. While appearing to legitimate and strengthen chief control over min-ing gangs, it started to chip away at the informal structures of chief con-trol over idm as it shifted political resources to the new national parties.The dominant political party, the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (slpp) en-joyed tacit British support and began to use its growing control over thestate administrative apparatus in the late 1950s to distribute diamondmining licenses according to party loyalties.

In 1967 a new party, the All Peoples Congress (apc) under the leader-ship of Siaka Stevens was elected. Stevens was prevented from taking of-fice by a military coup until a counter-coup enforced the election’s resultin 1968. He then moved quickly to shift the legal right of chiefs to grantlicenses to the Ministry of Mines to limit the awards of mining licensesto loyal supporters. The award of mining licenses in the late 1960s shiftedradically from chiefs who supported the slpp to a more concentratedgroup of those who switched loyalties or were installed in office by theapc.16 This tool gave Stevens a more certain means for controlling localstrongmen than the unreliable army that earlier prevented him from tak-ing office, a strategy vindicated in April 1971 when coup plotters enteredhis residence only to be fought off by bodyguards. Stevens thereafter lim-ited the army’s strength to just 1,500 men.

Tighter control over formal regulations and informal clandestine ar-rangements in the mining industry (but in fact now »official« in the senseof playing a central role in a strategy of rule) also gave Stevens controlover armed idm gangs to intimidate and attack political opponents. Thiscontrol was strong enough that even some apc parliamentarians com-

15. Fred Hayward, »The Development of a Radical Political Organization in the Bush:A Case Study in Sierra Leone«, Canadian Journal of African Studies, 6:1 (1972), 1–28.

16. A B Zack Williams, Tributors, Supporters, and Merchant Capital, (Aldershot: Ash-gate, 1995), 164–66.


plained that thugs under the cloak of the youth section of the All PeoplesCongress intimidated constituents and extort money.17

This forced chiefs in mining areas to make a choice. They could sidewith Stevens, but at the expense of their direct control over idm and atthe cost of suppressing opposition party activity. But not all local author-ities faced similar circumstances. Pressure from Freetown on Kono chiefswas stronger than it was on those further downstream. Both placeshosted alluvial mining operations. The upstream (Kono) area also con-tained deep-rock kimberlite mining and more deeply buried alluvialdeposits away from rivers. This distribution of resources means thatupstream deposits included diamonds more difficult to get withoutsubstantial capital investments and the involvement of outside firms.Downstream deposits are readily accessible by mining gangs with handtools. Conventional wisdom would consider the latter more susceptibleto predation and an attraction to armed gangs from outside the region,and thus greater social disruption.

In fact, the opposite turned out to be the case. Upstream deposits be-came the target of a mining policy in 1973 that Stevens advertised as indi-genization of some of the large foreign firm’s mining concession. Thisgave chiefs in the diamond source area access to joint ventures with busi-nessmen and politicians directly tied to Stevens’ favor and further con-centrated distribution of the region’s diamond wealth into the president’shands. The scheme also gave upriver political cliques more opportunitiesto make large amounts of money in industrial-scale mining operations,but at the cost of allying with politicians in the capital. Downstream,chiefs and local officials still maintained tighter control over idm gangs,provided they showed sufficient levels of loyalty to the ruling party. Thispattern shaped chiefs’ social control over violence in the 1990s. In areaswhere chiefs became more dependent on an »official« clandestine econ-omy before the war, youth, especially idm gangs, were more likely to col-laborate with ruf in the 1990s, and outside armed youth gangs (such asarmy units) also mined with more impunity. Local authorities furtherdownriver were more successful in channeling youth violence into homeguard units to defend communities. Local strongmen downstream at firstglance appear to pursue »greed« agendas, when in fact they used socialcontrol to organize mining in ways that contributed to local order whileupstream gangs operated outside this constraint. The consequences of

17. Minute Paper, (State House, Freetown), 14 Jan. 1969.


these different social relationships, especially with regard to the positionof young men, became more pronounced once war began.

Pre-war clandestine business in individual chiefdoms reflects these dif-ferences. The chief of the upriver Nimikoro chiefdom, for example,moved into alluvial operations with associates of the president after 1968,then into larger-scale mining operations in joint ventures.18 Stevens’ apcalso sought greater influence on the selection of new chiefs. A Kono chiefwho supported the slpp was deposed in 1971 and replaced with a formerAnglo-American security guard who had no local base of support. Thenew chief ruled until late 1992, when ruf mining gangs chased him away.This chief was unpopular among idm gangs in the early 1970s. »It was acase of this chief against the (illicit) miners«, said the former ProvincialSecretary,19 an unpopularity that persisted through the 1980s as the chieffavored the business partners of his presidential patron at the expense ofthe now »unofficial« clandestine economy of small-scale idm gangs. Thismay explain the early affinity of idm gangs in this chiefdom for ruf whenthey first appeared in this area in 1992. They confronted and confrontedchiefs who relied upon Freetown to stay in power at the expense of localpeople’s clandestine access to diamonds and were able to recruit local idmminers.

Prior to the rebel challenge, the informal institutions of Stevens’ po-litical networks protected his client chiefs. In 1982, a Kono chief shot acritic of the president. The senior District Officer recommended sus-pending the chief during the criminal investigation. From Freetowncame the word: »His opponents may capitalize on his fate and causechaos and confusion in the chiefdom with a view toward disposing ofhim«.20 The chief was released and the case dropped. Stevens removed arecalcitrant Kono chief in 1982 when an ethnic Lebanese business partnerof the president set up his own large-scale mining operations in the chief-dom. Then strangers became violent when they discovered that theirformer patron could no longer protect them from the business interestsof Freetown officials who demanded that idm gangs be cleared off. An-

18. David Rosen, Diamonds, Diggers and Chiefs: The Politics of Fragmentation in a WestAfrican Society, PhD dissertation, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, 1974.

19. Interview with former Provincial Secretary, Eastern Province, Freetown, 9 May2001.

20.The District Officer’s report is found in Arrest of Paramount Chief of Gbense Chief-dom, Kono District, pf/na/405/1/2, 5 July 1982. The reply is found in Sierra LeoneGovernment, Minute Paper (State House, Freetown), 14 July 1982.


other Kono chief installed in 1981 headed the recently nationalized dia-mond-mining corporation. Consequently he had very bad relations withidm gangs and periodically relied upon armed forces and apc youthgangs dispatched from the capital for his protection.

Predatory personalist rule and state collapse destroyed other economic opportunities that depended upon more stable state institutions.

Downriver in Kenema, a government administrator complained thatlocal chiefs and idm gangs were »total slpp«, which meant that Freetownofficials had to tread more carefully. This did not mean that the downrivercommunities escaped interference. Alpha Lavalie, a founder of the CivilDefence Force in the early 1990s, wrote that the apc »condoned, perhapseven encouraged, chiefdom uprisings which entailed intimidation andcoercion« that mobilized otherwise idle youths under the supervision ofapc stalwarts to intimidate candidates who attempted to contest nomi-nations for single party elections.21 He observed that apc organizersbrought youths from outside the area, even though many local youthswere idle. The apc’s need to recruit outsiders reflected the success of localnotables in »organizing an anti-apc campaign based on the use of Poro«,a customary male initiation society. »By this means, the slpp was able tounify all its supporters in Mende land to drive out from their areas im-ported apc supporters.«22

Lavalie’s observations show the importance of the social context ofviolence and the relationship of local leadership to predatory central au-thorities. Though downriver communities were well known as idm sites,local chiefs were more successful in keeping political and social distancebetween themselves and the emerging apc »official« clandestine econ-omy and political network. They still faced serious challenges from youthviolence directed against them. In the long run, however, they main-tained greater control over local youth through influence over informal

21. Alpha Lavalie, slpp: A Study of the Political History of the Sierra Leone PeoplesParty with Particular Reference to the Period, 1968–1978, ma Thesis, University ofSierra Leone, 1983, 12.

22. Alpha Lavalie, Government and Opposition in Sierra Leone, 1968–1978, Paper pre-sented at Fourth Birmingham Sierra Leone Studies Forum, Birmingham, uk, 1985,80.


institutions such as an initiation society and patronage to local idm op-erations. This ability of many local chiefs to preserve some political dis-tance from Freetown politicians gave them less income, but enabled themto behave in a locally legitimate manner as local patrons for idm gangs,since they did not have to tolerate as much interference from Freetownventures that forced idm gangs off their land.

This connection between idm and community defense became appar-ent in 1986 when a few local aspirants challenged externally imposedcandidates in single party elections. Authorities rounded up local youth,including idm miners and pressed them into service to defend local com-munities. A precursor of the Civil Defence Force militias emerged whenthese youth were recruited with the approval of traditional authoritiesand organized as »traditional hunters«. This practice gave fighters a highlevel of commitment and a stake in obedience to local social structuresgoverning the use of violence to protect local communities.23

Urban society in Sierra Leone also showed the consequence of differ-ent configurations of social control over resources and youth violence.Armed apc youth and the Internal Security Unit (isu), formed underpresidential command, attacked University of Sierra Leone students in1977 when they protested against the president and the start of a precipi-tous economic decline. In what students later commemorated as »AllThugs Day«, isu joined with local unemployed youth to repress studentsand to loot. Resembling future ruf operations, the isu and their collab-orators were accused even in the government-owned newspaper of »cap-italizing on their position to harass innocent traders at night, attemptingassault on women, and even going to the extent of store breaking«.24

All Thugs Day showed the difficulties that a »grievance« oriented op-position to Stevens’ regime faced in their efforts to mobilize. Some stu-dents organized a »people’s tribunal« to mobilize regime critics. Otherstook up arms. Yet these ideas and tactics never emerged in the ruf. Aperceptive observer of that era explains that ruf drew from »the large un-employed and unemployable youths, mostly male, who live by their witsor who have one foot in what is generally referred to as the informal or

23. Marianne Ferme, »Studying politisi: the Dialogues of Publicity and Secrecy in SierraLeone«, in John & Jean Comaroff, eds., Civil Society and Political Imagination in Af-rica, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 160–91.

24.»Halt Deteriorating Situation«, Daily Mail, (Freetown), 4 Feb. 1977, 8.


underground economy«.25 The inability of the student movement tochannel or exert social control over this violence rendered them marginalto the war that would follow. Like youth in parts of the mining districts,urban youth had to calculate whether it was more advantageous to allywith politicians who they considered to be corrupt and vile in order toimprove their prospects for survival. Backing regime critics who did notcontrol resources would leave followers facing superior firepower of pol-iticians’ militias and without opportunities to gather loot for themselves.

The Privatization of Control and the Destruction of the State

New paramilitaries and youth gangs gave Stevens more leeway to manip-ulate what was left of state institutions to loot the country’s resources. Heand a Sierra Leone-born Lebanese partner, Jamil Said Mohammed tookover the state diamond marketing monopoly in 1976 in a bogus privati-zation exercise. This left the two in control of up to 300 million dollars(at 2001 prices) in diamond revenues. Stevens extended his style of priva-tization to state agencies for agricultural marketing, road transport, andoil refining. Other deals included schemes to import toxic wastes and sellan island to the Palestine Liberation Organization.26

The shift of revenues to Stevens’ personal control destroyed stateagencies as channels for patronage and made access to Stevens, not thestate the primary avenue to enrichment. Deficit spending reflected thisshift, jumping from about 50 percent of revenues through the 1970s toover 100 percent in the mid 1980s.27 The subsequent collapse of stateservices, accelerating inflation and mass impoverishment reinforced thecentrality of Stevens’ »official« clandestine market for people’s survivalstrategies. Stevens retired in 1985 (and died soon after), but not beforehanding power to his hand picked successor, General Joseph Momoh,the commander of the largely unarmed army. Stevens chose Momoh be-cause he could not challenge the enterprise that Stevens and his businesspartners built in the »official« clandestine economy. Momoh’s lack of

25. Ibrahim Abdullah, »Bush Path to Destruction: The Origin and Character of theRevolutionary United Front (ruf/sl)«, Africa Development, 22: 3–4 (1997), 73.

26. »us Dumping Demonstration«, West Africa, 25 Feb. 1980, 377.27. International Monetary Fund, Balance of Payments Statistics Yearbook, (Washing-

ton, dc: imf, 1990), 173.


control was reflected in the near total collapse of official diamond exportsby 1989 as Stevens’ partners expanded their domination of the country’seconomic resources.

Momoh struggled to build his own political network amidst his lackof control over the clandestine, much less formal economy. Pressure frominternational financial institutions worsened Momoh’s dilemma. Thegovernment’s accumulation of arrears led to a break between Freetownand the imf in 1987. Shortly after, Stevens’ associates launched a coup.Momoh’s support was in the army of about 3,000 soldiers, many ofwhom existed only on paper so that commanders could collect additionalsalaries on the increasingly infrequent occasions when these were paid.Live soldiers attracted names like »One Bullet« from citizens referring tothe unarmed army’s subordination to armed gangs.

Momoh and the imf sought solutions to the weak capacity of the gov-ernment and the country’s arrears in corporate control over diamondmining areas. Like colonial officials before, imf officials explained that alarge foreign firm would displace idm and channel revenue to Freetown,without needing strong (and expensive) state institutions. A steadystream of revenues could pay Sierra Leone’s debts and finance a smaller,more efficient bureaucracy. From Momoh’s perspective, a large miningoperation offered him the best chance to chase off Stevens’ business part-ners, their local allies, and idm gangs and use those resources to ensurehis own political survival.

Two Israeli firms appeared, but neither established large-scale opera-tions. Instead, the first firm purchased diamonds from local traders tolaunder money and to finance clandestine trade with the apartheid regimein South Africa. The second firm allegedly laundered drug money. Amore established firm based in the United States promised to invest in amajor mining project on the condition that the Sierra Leone Army clearKono’s mining areas of idm operations. In mid 1990, the army launchedOperation Clean Sweep, then Operation Clear All, forcing as many as30,000 miners out of the area. The vigor of the soldiers, many of who didnot receive regular salaries, reflected haste to set up idm operations ontheir own or with the former patrons of the miners they chased off.

These episodes underline how external intervention influences localsocial control over violence. Both the imf and the president envisionedforeign firms as contributing to a centralization of control over coercionand resources. imf advisors viewed this as occurring in a formal institu-tional framework; the president most likely imagined a reconstituted pa-


tronage network. Instead, external intrusion shifted control of resourcesto armed idm gangs even further divorced from central control. As youngsoldiers joined idm gangs, they began to resemble even more strongly thegroups that would fight each other to control diamonds in the war thatwas soon to come.

Predatory Gangs, Private Militias and Foreign Armies

Soon after the army invaded Kono’s mining district, ruf fighters crossedfrom Liberia to Sierra Leone in March 1991 with help from CharlesTaylor’s npfl. Momoh had little choice but to expand his army to 6,000men to meet this threat. Momoh’s foreign minister admitted that mostrecruits were »drifters, rural and urban unemployed, a fair number ofhooligans, drug addicts and thieves«.28 Some junior officers fightingrebels discovered that corrupt senior officers in Freetown were stealingsupplies meant for frontline soldiers. Sergeant Valentine Strasser andother non-commissioned officers marched to Freetown in April 1992,forcing Momoh to flee. Strasser’s immediate demand concerned the ab-sence of medical care – he was allegedly injured in a battle with ruf fight-ers who discovered Strasser and his men mining diamonds. Strasser setup a National Provisional Ruling Council (nprc) and promised to defeatthe ruf. By 1994, the nprc had increased the army to 14,000 soldiers re-cruited from the unemployed youth, some from armed gangs or whoearned a living through crime.

Kono’s diamond mining areas fell to the ruf in November 1992, andwere recaptured by nprc soldiers in January 1993 with help from Nige-rian troops. Meanwhile, many soldiers mined diamonds, sometimes incollaboration with ruf fighters, while ruf developed its own diamondbusiness with their Liberian patron. »There developed«, wrote a formernprc minister, »an extraordinary identity of interests between nprc andruf. This was partly responsible for the rise of the sobel phenomenon, i.e.,government soldiers by day become rebels by night.«29

28. Quoted in Lansana Gberie, »The May 25 Coup d’État in Sierra Leone: A MilitariatRevolt?« Africa Development, 22:3–4 (1997), 153.

29. Arthur Abraham, »War and Transition to Peace: A Study of State Conspiracy inPerpetuating Armed Conflict«, African Development, 22: 3–4 (1997), 103.


After the April 1992 coup, many Sierra Leoneans recognized that oldconnections between armed gangs and politicians persisted, especially indiamond mining and trafficking. A Freetown journalist explained thatarmed gangs received backing from what he called »town rebels«: »Inconstant help and communication with bush rebels. They are alwaysneatly dressed and so are not easily identified. They work for the estab-lished government. They work in offices close to the seat of the President… They are always neatly dressed especially in coats and ties. This class ofrebels is responsible for the ugly state (and pleasant state) you are in today… With just a signature they robbed your country of billions.«30

Most of the young officers who took power in the 1992 coup wereamong the marginalized youth who in other circumstances sought thepatronage of strongmen, but now acted as their own bosses. The rufleader, Foday Sankoh, echoed these sentiments in his justification forruf’s diamond mining: »They ask us why we mine diamonds. Whydidn’t they ask Jamil or Shaki [Siaka Stevens] that when the apc was inpower? Yeah, we mine! We in ruf believe in wealth, arms and power inthe hands of the people … We are not going to give up diamonds or ourguns to anybody.«31 In this regard, Sankoh and nprc soldiers shared aview of the country’s problem – it was potentially rich, but politicians hadstolen everything.

A turn in the war came in April 1995 when the nprc government hiredExecutive Outcomes (eo), a South African private security firm, to fightruf rebels who were within 20 miles of the capital. By December 1995,eo had captured the Kono mining area from ruf, and were training fight-ers who had managed to keep downriver areas out of rebel hands. eotrained and reorganized anti-ruf fighters in the formal cdf frameworkto help eo track rebels. ruf faced defeat and accepted negotiations, re-sulting in the Abidjan Agreement in November 1996, which led to anelection in March 1997 and a un observer mission.32

The election’s winner, Amhed Tejan Kabbah, faced imf and donorpressure to quit spending the government’s meager funds on eo, so he

30. As Nasralla, »Types of Rebels«, For di People, (Freetown), 5 Feb. 1999, 2.31. Transcript of Foday Sankoh speech, Makeni, 1 Feb. 2000, (my translation of text).32. United Nations, A Peace Agreement Between the Government of the Republic of

Sierra Leone and the Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone, 30 Nov. 1996, S/1996/1034.


told the outfit to leave.33 Soon after, on 25 May 1997, rebellious soldiersand ruf fighters battled their way into Freetown. These »sobels« formedthe Armed Forces Ruling Council (afrc) with the army’s Major JohnnyPaul Kromah at its head and ruf’s Sankoh as his deputy. The afrc forcedcivil servants to »donate« their efforts in lieu of payment, as fighterslooted the city and human rights abuses proliferated. When faced withopposition from the Nigerian expeditionary force (which occupied partof the city), afrc spokesmen announced that they would kill citizens andburn the city in Operation No Living Thing.34 One fighter who muti-lated a civilian reportedly told his victim: »Since you civilians are not herefor us, we are here to destroy you.«35 Nigerian soldiers forced the afrcout of the city in February 1998 and reinstalled Kabbah as president.

External support reduced the RUF rebels’ incentives to rely upon popular support in Sierra Leone to survive. They allied with a distant patron in exchange for access to diamond wealth, and could use outsiders as mili-tary muscle to chase off local people who opposed that arrangement.

Elements of the army that joined the afrc behaved much like ruf,preying upon local communities, recruiting youth to loot, setting uproadblocks and collecting »taxes«. Calling themselves West Side Boys,like ruf they incorporated elements of Sierra Leone youth culture intotheir war fighting culture. The name »West Side« came from hip-hopmusic admired by some urban youth. A business rivalry between two usgangsta rap music studios led to the murder of Tupac Shakur, the popular»West« artist, and Biggie Smalls, the ceo of »East«. Fighters admiredthese men who began as enterprising and clever drug dealers, who likethem had to live in the informal economy and depend on wits and vio-lence to survive. The savvy among them hit it big and got rich. While notretailing crack cocaine, this sort of violent enterprise can be said to havecharacterized the behavior of Sierra Leone’s politicians too.

33. John Hirsch, Sierra Leone: Diamonds and the Struggle for Democracy, (Boulder:Lynne Rienner, 2001), 40.

34. United States Department of State, Sierra Leone Atrocities Against Civilians,(Washington, dc, 12 May 1998); United Nations, Second Progress Report of theSecretary General on the United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone, 18 Oct.1998, 8.

35. Human Rights Watch, Fresh Reports of ruf Terror Tactics, 26 May 2000.


The bulk of cdf forces evolved very differently. Most civilians recog-nized little difference between soldiers, West Side Boys, ruf and othergroups that often preyed upon civilians and at first these fighters easilyoverwhelmed local vigilante groups. But during the December 1994 rufattack on the downriver towns of Bo and Kenema, Lavalie and severallocal chiefs organized these vigilantes under the rubric of traditionalauthorities and initiation societies. These local defense units survivedLavalie’s violent death in late 1994 and formed the core of the Civil De-fence Forces.36

Though the cdf mobilized fighters’ shared ethnic ties, the relative lackof serious disruption of local customary practices and greater legitimacyof traditional authorities permitted participation by outsider youth.Strangers in the community were incorporated into local social structuresthrough local practices that had developed around mining. Because chiefsin mining areas had more incentive to try to protect »their« strangers inthe »unofficial« clandestine economy against politicians’ predations, localinformal institutions still played a large role, in contrast to the social dis-ruption that the Freetown political and business elite’s intrusion intoKono politics and business caused. In wartime, these reciprocal obliga-tions in downriver communities translated into a promise that chiefs andtheir miner allies guarantee each other’s security. Though weakened byapc rule and earlier colonial administrative practice, pressures of war andhome defense produced an organization that mined diamonds while sup-plying order. They managed fragmenting pressures and the self-interestof entrepreneurs associated with war involving natural resources and thecollapse of state institutions. Furthermore, they showed how clandestineeconomies and control of violence can promote order in some circum-stances.

The cdf also played a role in creating disorder. The head of the afrcregime justified the 1997 coup, complaining: »The slpp tribal hunter mi-litia received logistics and supplies far beyond their immediate needs.This was indication of the preference for the private army over our ArmedForces, foreshadowing the ultimate replacement of the ConstitutionalDefense Forces by Mr. Kabbah’s hunters.«37 In addition, cdf units de-

36. Patrick Muana, »The Kamajoi Militia: Civil War, Internal Displacement and thePolitics of Counter-Insurgency«, Africa Development, 22:3–4 (1997), 77–100.

37. Letter from Johnny Paul Kromah to Economic Community of West African States,12 Aug. 1997.


ployed outside home areas were removed from social institutions thatdisciplined their behavior, which contributed to cdf abuses of humanrights elsewhere in the country.

cdf history shows the importance of informal institutions, includingchief control of the »unofficial« clandestine regional economy. This ex-perience belies predictions of standard approaches that link exploitationof easily obtained natural resources with predatory behavior and politicalopportunism. It shows the role that continuity of authority played in en-abling downriver chiefs to organize local »unruly youth« in contrast toapc-imposed Kono chiefs who lacked informal institutional ties to theircommunities or control over youthful strangers and violence. Localauthorities in some downriver communities were able to build upon thisinstitutional legacy to create an effective mechanism for providing orderthat was at least modestly responsive to popular interests.

Outside intervention in Sierra Leone’s war also shaped the distribu-tion of social control of violence and resources. As noted above, Liberia’spresident Charles Taylor supported the ruf rebels since the start of thewar in 1991. This external support reduced ruf incentives to rely uponpopular support in Sierra Leone to survive. Like chiefs in Kono in the1970s under the apc, ruf allied with a distant patron in exchange for ac-cess to diamond wealth, and could use outsiders as military muscle tochase off local people who opposed that arrangement. Like Stevens andJamil, ruf and Taylor used international business connections to marketdiamonds and to supply weapons to fighters.

International recognition of Taylor’s election as president of Liberia in1997 reinforced his role as an external patron for diamond mining rebels.He received over 75 percent of the vote after he warned that he would goback to war if voters rejected him. Taylor accurately guessed that foreignrecognition of his victory and eagerness to disengage from the conflictwould free him from a need to build new popular bases of support if hewanted to be president. Even when military setbacks and internationalpressure forced the ruf into peace negotiations, Taylor aided the ruf.The 1999 Lomé Agreement, for example, called for the ruf to transformitself into a political party in preparation for elections and established arole for 12,000 un observers as the United National Mission in SierraLeone (unamsil) to oversee disarmament of all factions in the country.38

38. Peace Agreement Between the Government of Sierra Leone and the RevolutionaryUnited Front of Sierra Leone, author’s copy of original.


It also made ruf leader Sankoh head of the Strategic Minerals ResourceCommission to manage Sierra Leone’s diamond resources. Sankoh in-stead used his position to protect ruf’s diamond deals with Taylor andother outsiders.

When un peacekeepers investigated ruf’s activities, ruf fightersrobbed unamsil convoys. ruf fighters refused to report to disarmamentsites. ruf fighters then kidnapped several hundred un observers in earlyMay 2000. Sankoh was captured and arrested on 16 May 2000 afterfleeing his Freetown residence, a point that marked a shift in the un’s ap-proach to the conflict. Almost a thousand British Royal Marines and par-atroopers arrived to bolster the Kabbah government. British trainers ar-rived to retrain and support the Sierra Leone Army in an offensive againstrebels, and Sankoh was arrested in May 2000. This pressure succeeded inforcing rebels to hand over weapons to redeployed un peacekeepers asthey sought refuge from military offensives on other fronts. British strat-egists also helped cdf units press the offensive against the ruf. By late2001, 17,500 un peacekeepers had access to most of the country, and the18 January 2002 declaration ended the war.

Flawed Conflict Resolution

International efforts to resolve Sierra Leone’s conflict have involved largeamounts of money to create order. The unamsil deployment to late2002 has cost about 2 billion dollars to sustain 17,500 soldiers, the world’slargest peacekeeping force. The Secretary General foresees a deploymentthrough 2004 at an annual cost of about 700 million dollars, about equalto Sierra Leone’s gdp. A Special Court is to be convened in 2003 underSecurity Council Resolution 1315 of 2000 is estimated to require a three-year budget of 60 million dollars to prosecute war criminals. A Multi-Donor Trust Fund called for contributions of 74 million dollars to financedemobilization and reconstruction efforts. Creditors in 2001 approved950 million dollars in debt service relief.39

While lavishing money on imposing order on Sierra Leone, this strat-egy fails to change the distribution of resources that played a large part insustaining that country’s war. Most immediately, a 13.5 million dollars

39. United Nations, Fifteenth Report of the Secretary-General on the United NationsMission in Sierra Leone (New York: un, 5 Sept. 2002), 1,3.


shortfall in the Multi-Donor Trust Fund left 24,000 ex-combatants wait-ing for reintegration payments. Some engage in street protests, whileothers join an insurgency against Liberia’s government. Donor officialscomplain that postwar reconstruction efforts receive less political backingfrom donors, especially once fighting ends.

The World Bank and the Sierra Leone government recognize that thekey to sustainable postwar programs lies in developing Sierra Leone’sown revenue sources. Thus both support diamond mining licenseschemes resembling the 1950s British effort to lure illicit miners into tax-able channels. Like the earlier effort, current policy centralizes award oflicenses in Freetown. idm gangs complain that politicians use this powerto reward allies, as before the war, and protest that this constitutes a theftof »their« resources. These gangs include many ex-combatants who areeager to exploit one of the country’s only sources of economic opportu-nity.

At the cost of several billion dollars international agencies have brought order to Sierra Leone through establishing a state (or UN) monopoly on violence. But it leaves unaddressed the particular social distribution of resources in the hands of political networks in the context of state col-lapse. These networks control resources at the expense of local people’s security and opportunity.

Like British and post-colonial Sierra Leone officials, creditors advisethat »capturing a substantial share of diamond mining rents in the formof taxes hinges mainly on attracting an international mining enter-prise«.40 Though this is aimed mainly at deep deposits, idm gangs fearthat it will cordon off large alluvial deposits. This would also shift controlof resources to the distant central government. A British funded Anti-Corruption Commission also offers significant evidence that these re-sources continue to be distributed on a political basis. Since its establish-ment in 2000, the commission reported corruption scandals that includeseveral ministers of government, all of whom have suffered mild repri-mands and many of whom remain active in politics.

40.World Bank, Transitional Support Strategy for the Republic of Sierra Leone,(Washington, dc: World Bank, 3 March 2002), 9.


Continued corruption leaves little hope that increased government re-sources will be used to rebuild civil administration. Teachers in late 2001were reported to be waiting for salary arrears of 6 to 8 months. The rank-and-file civil service averaged earnings of about one dollar a day, equiva-lent to the un’s definition of absolute poverty. Sierra Leone in 2001 hadonly 15 magistrates (earning 900 dollars per year) and 18 judges to admin-ister justice to five million citizens. Even in the southern province, ingovernment hands for most of the war, local courts have been operatingautonomously since 1994. Only one state employee deals with local courtmatters outside of Freetown. The total judiciary payroll in 2001amounted to only 215,000 dollars, versus the 20 million dollars budgetedeach year for the Special Court to try two or three dozen individuals whoare of interest to the international community as war criminals.41

This poor record of corruption and scarce resources creates incentivesto leave reconstruction in the lands of local agents. Thus local courts getrebuilt around existing autonomous structures. The problem with thislies in continued channeling of resources through political networks.Though starved of formal revenues, politicians in the capital continue tofind incentives to make deals with local strongmen who will use theircontrol over courts and law enforcement to favor business operators fa-vored in the capital at the expense of local miners. As ex-combatants,many of these miners evince little sympathy, especially from the interna-tional community, and often are defined as »thuggish youth« whothreaten peace.42

Thus at the cost of several billion dollars international agencies havebrought order to Sierra Leone through establishing a state (or un) mo-nopoly on violence. But it leaves unaddressed the particular social distri-bution of resources in the hands of political networks in the context ofstate collapse. These networks control resources at the expense of localpeople’s security and opportunity. The only way to remove this threat isto build a real state administration that provides services to people as clearevidence that its claims on resources and control over economic oppor-tunities is used for the benefit of the population as a whole. This will notcome at a low cost, and is likely to involve a level of outside interferencein administrative matters to reverse several decades of state decline that

41. Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative & Sierra Leone Bar Association, In Pur-suit of Justice: A Report on the Judiciary in Sierra Leone, (Freetown, 2002).

42.United Nations, Fifteenth Report, 2.


will deter foreign donors. It is the only viable course to turn the presentorder into a durable peace.

Furthermore, it is cost effective. Foreign governments have alreadyspent billions of dollars to bring fighting to an end in Sierra Leone. If theywithdraw without helping to establish a state, it is probable that the warwill return to the country via conflicts currently waged in Liberia, Guineaand Côte d’Ivoire. If young miners and others continue to perceive thatthe country’s resources are in the hands of corrupt officials they will bemore willing to join that fight. To the economist, this is war motivatedby greed. For the young fighter, it is injustice.

Documents

Political Networks in a Failing State The Roots and Future